


Dixon

by baeberiibungh



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Meta if you squint, POV, Post Season 2, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 12:01:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7573303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baeberiibungh/pseuds/baeberiibungh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Franklin has a new therapist again…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dixon

The first friend Franklin made was the school bully at 8 years old. His mother fussed about it, complained how Franklin was such a good boy and should have had dozen of friends vying for his attention. Her kind, sweet, cute little Franklin. Franklin couldn’t help but hold a high opinion about the opinions his mother held. Jeremy was a boy one grade above, with clothes that always looked dirtier than Franklin’s, eyes fiery and mouth pulled into a half snarl towards everyone. He had hard knuckles too, fists that seemed to be made of stone. Franklin got a lots of black eyes and nose bleeds at the end of those fists. But he got grins too, where Jeremy did not look so hard, where his eyes did not glint so cruelly and Franklin smiled back with blood stained teeth and meant it.

Jeremy made Franklin’s mother upset, seeing how rudely he behaved with her son, broke his toys, bossed him around. But Franklin stuck by him, helping him do his homework, sharing his lunch with Jeremy when he didn’t have the money to buy one measly sandwich. It was an odd relationship. Franklin was not one of Jeremy’s gang, he didn’t go with them when they went around terrorizing smaller kids and making trouble, Franklin was like an anomaly that hung on in Jeremy’s orbit and Franklin did not have a clear idea why. There were thoughts that this was how friendships went, never having learned better, and Franklin was relieved enough to cherish that as long as he could.

Which turned out when he turned 16. Jeremy would no longer look at him, reply to his texts or mails and if he ever saw Franklin in school or Franklin hailed him, he pretended not to see or hear him. He didn’t understand what happened. Jeremy was his friend, he knew that Jeremy was his friend, that however misguided and ‘bad’ he was, he did feel a smattering of something softer than the colours he saw the world in when it came to Franklin. It was unintended, sure, but still there. Later, he once saw a documentary on a mouse that lived in a snake cage, and went to and fro, uneaten, till, without any rhyme and reason, the first snake friend the mouse made ate him up. A loose realization dawned, but Franklin tried to think not too much about it.

Seven years later when Franklin heard that Jeremy died in a car accident, he cried and cried. He even went to the sparsely attended funeral. No one knew who he was and no one asked.

It was the third year of college when he met Tobias. He was still living in the dorm, too broke at the moment to get out and his roommates kept changing, without giving him any heads-up and Franklin still didn’t understand. Then Tobias moved in and it was like Franklin had found a new friend again. Tobias was doing his masters in music, while Franklin was in management. And somehow, somehow, after college ended, they managed to keep in touch. The fact that both lived in the same place helped. But then the fact was that Tobias seem to have no other friend, even though he was very charming and friendly to others, than Franklin. Tobias was simply not bothered enough the whole thing and Franklin couldn’t mind. 

“I went to see Lecter today, you know, my new therapist, the one that was referred to me,” Franklin said leaning towards Tobias as both ate their dinner. The food was excellent with a good wine to go with it. The restaurant was decent, and the hum of conversation and tinkle of cutlery against glass rang out mutely in the softly lighted surrounding. There were faint strains of music heard between brief lull in the hum, something recorded, and hence Tobias agreeing to come to dinner in the first place. Franklin also had to invite him three times to get Tobias to agree. It was the usual song and dance and Franklin knew how to beg his friend by now, years of experience behind him.

“Your newest one, how is he?” Tobias asked as he puts a bite sized piece of steak into his mouth and chewed slowly.

“Oh I feel he has a much better view on what is going on than Dr. Renferd. He looks very distinguished. From some other country altogether I believe, his accent is very distingushable. I checked some of his online reviews, and everyone only had good words for him, how well he treats his patients and his excellent memory and social skills. From both from the ladies and the lads I might add. He is very good at his job. He rarely keeps repeats, excellent at directing people in the right decisions one said. I think I am going to like him. Well, anyway, I think do like him already, he listened so well to my stuff and didn’t look bored like Dr. Zakaria from before,” Franklin said.

“Of course you do like him Franklin. Just one session, and already in love with your therapist. You never change, just keep forcing your therapists to change. Will you never learn, _Dixon_ , there is nothing quite wrong with you. I mean there is something the matter with you, but it is not a wrong thing. If you were not who you are, I really do think we would not have been friends in any capacity or kind,” Tobias said in a bored voice, his eyes on his plate, but his languid smile knowing how crestfallen Franklin suddenly looks, fumbling with his words, eyes wounded and shoulders stooped. Franklin gulps, gives a threadbare smile and takes a sip of the wine.

“I don’t love him,” Franklin still sputters. “Also,” he adds, “you know I am straight.”

“Oh I know. I know that very well,” Tobias says with a sneer and Franklin feels a bloom of shame ruddy his cheeks at both the tone in which Tobias is speaking and what he is implying. He turns to his meal, nearly done, suddenly not that hungry for the cheese platter as dessert. He prods at the small pieces of meat still on his plate, pushing them through the sauce that has congealed and wishes, deeply wishes that he was not so alone that he would go begging for Tobias’ company each time even after being treated so. The ghost of Jeremy looms at the back of his mind at such instances, and he can’t help feel that he is the loneliest man in the whole world and always will be so. 

A sigh works out of his throat as he stares at his empty plate, missing the grimace on Tobias’ face and the calculating look that follows after. He starts a little when Tobias taps his hand on Franklin’s and then says, “I am sorry Franklin, I am not upset with you. It is just that we just got a new member in the orchestra and he has been wracking havoc on our symphony. I did not mean to hurt your sentiments, I am sorry,” Tobias says with a small bow in his direction and Franklin feels the world has righted itself again, a smile forming on his face. If only Tobias would behave like this all the time, but he knows that it is a mask and has mixed feelings about the fact that Tobias never bothers with it in front of Franklin.

Dr. Lecter is a very patient and resourceful man, and he never tells Franklin what he feels is invalid. He lets him talk about his anxiety, about his dreams and hopes while Franklin tries his best to make Dr. Lecter (how he wishes Dr. Lecter will permit him to call Dr. Lecter Hannibal instead of Dr. Lecter) realize that Franklin can be a good friend, prove it almost. He has to make Dr. Lecter come to the conclusion that Franklin is worthy to be anyone’s friend, that he has that much to offer that anyone should be glad to be his friend, unconsciously echoing his mother’s assertions of his own worth and self, presenting just where his self esteem lies. And most of all he wonders why he feels like he is with Jeremy when before Dr. Lecter.

“He used to call me Dixon, you know, after the writer of those Hardy Boys books that I used to love and carry one on me at school. It was, it was not mean or anything, him refusing to call me by my name, but more like he had this special name for me that only he could call. Not even my mother knows it. I told Tobias about it and he sometimes calls me that if he is upset. I don’t mind, it is just a name, there is nothing more specifically morbid about it now that Jeremy is dead. But I still think I don’t really like being called that you know. It is not my name. It, Jeremy gave it to me, but he is not there now and I want Tobias to stop, but not really and I don’t know how to bring it up,” Franklin admitted to Hannibal at one of his sessions, hawking into another tissue.

“So you should tell him, Franklin, that you do not want to be addressed by that name. If he is your friend, he will stop for sure. Carrying anxiety over what he may say or not say you cannot hold onto the positive connotation of that name if Tobias continues to use it in ways you don’t want him to. Franklin, you have to comfort him about this as this is an issue that is important to you. You cannot just expect it to resolve by itself if you don’t take an active steps for it. Tobias may be unaware about what you feel about the whole thing and he is unknowingly exacerbating the whole thing. You have to work at this, for your own benefit and future and the future of your relationship with Tobias,” Hannibal said to a clearly agitated Franklin.

As Franklin chewed his lips in indecision, Hannibal has to fight his immediate instinct to cave in Franklin’s face. Maybe some other time, Hannibal consoled himself.

Years later, after Franklin, Tobias, Will and Abigail, as he lay in bed with Bedelia running her hands through his hair, he recounted about that odd little man from before. It was a favourite thing to do between the two, reminiscing about old cases, dead and undead. Bedelia had a throve, having started years before Hannibal, but it was Hannibal who had the most interesting ones while Bedelia listened on, her professional and personal awe making her an avid audience. There were tales of anorexic boys and identity misfiring girls and couples who were disastrously in love people who had never loved and men who wanted to be babies and women who didn’t want babies and so much more.

“He was such a non-entity of a human, that no one hated him. No one cared about him and he mattered not even that much that anyone would spend that bit of energy to hate him. For me, and I believe for Tobias as well, the serial killer he was half in love with and half in dread of, it is somewhat like pity but more evolved. No one cared enough to hate him and no one hated him enough to kill him. People would just look at him and see this pathetic excuse of a human and they had to remove themselves from his vicinity. It was hard to look at such a possibility, those people who were so unsure of their own identity and place in the world and so they avoided him like the plague,” Hannibal chuckled as he recounted to Bedelia.

Hannibal added, “Tobias and I though, we knew what we are, knew exactly and precisely what we were capable of. And Franklin was an interesting enough specimen to look at sometimes. There was also the knowledge that I would have to kill him off, there was no way he could just keep going, or even worse, he would have kept going just like that, this pathetic excuse of existence. Stuck in his job because he could not comprehend asking or wanting more, looking on at others happy and well and instead of trying to make himself happy, fuss and quilt himself over why he is not and others are. He was a truly despicable human, like no human should be, devoid of worth and I did him a favour killing him after all.”

Bedelia hummed her affirmation and wondered about the man for whom Hannibal had grown an impossible bud of pity. Then she felt happy that he never got to meet him. “What was his name?” Bedelia asked, intrigued.

Hannibal did not answer at first, but then he said, with a smile in his voice, “Dixon.”

**Author's Note:**

> I found Franklin interesting and it took me some time to understand why Hannibal and Tobias did. Thanks for reading. Unbetaed. Please let me know what you think. kudos and comments are very appreciated.


End file.
